The canal de Garonne by bike from Agen to Toulouse

This section of the Canal des 2 Mers à Vélo cycle route is entirely on greenways, enabling you to appreciate the countryside to the full. Head a bit away from the Canal de Garonne to enjoy charming, hilly terrain with hints of Tuscany. Moissac and Montauban, pink-brick towns on the Tarn River, have each been designated a Ville d’Art et d’Histoire for their rich culture. Their culinary attractions are strong too. As to much larger pink-brick Toulouse, it’s a dynamic regional capital. Take in its striking monuments and vibrant quarters.

The 5 stages of the section « The canal de Garonne by bike from Agen to Toulouse »

Leave Agen’s port via a greenway. The way continues close to the Garonne, although the river is rarely visible from beside the canal. After Lamagistère, you enter Valence d’Agen, passing close to former abattoirs superbly converted into an information centre. The town was built as a fortified bastide in the 13th century. Admire its covered market, dovecotes, washhouses and port. Every summer, the show entitled Au Fil de l’Eau une Histoire revives the town’s important past as a port.

From Valence to Moissac, the cycle route sticks to the tranquil canal. The town of Moissac, located on one of the famous pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela, stretches out peacefully beside the Tarn River. Visit Moissac’s splendid medieval Benedictine abbey, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with its stunningly carved cloisters and one of the most beautiful Romanesque church entrances in southern France.

The Canal des 2 Mers à Vélo cycle route leaves Moissac via the Pont-canal du Cacor, a remarkable canal-bridge. Not long after, you reach a business park at the entrance to Castelsarrasin, an historic fortified town in the County of Toulouse. From its marina, you can head into the old centre that witnessed many turbulent times, but that has preserved many fine public spaces and buildings, including the imposing St-Sauveur Church, built of fine brick.

Leaving Montech, the Canal des 2 Mers à Vélo cycle route leads south along the greenway beside the Canal de Garonne towards the great regional capital of Toulouse. Numerous big villages are dotted along the way, like Grisolles, with its museum, and many ‘Villeneuves’, ‘new towns’ dating from the construction of fortified grid-plan settlements… in the 13th century. A cycling circuit through the nearby vineyards of the Frontonnais allows you to discover them and a grape variety unique to this part of southwest France – négrette.

You can sense the outskirts of the huge regional metropolis of Toulouse long before reaching the centre of ‘the pink city’, as it’s nicknamed. Sticking to the Canal de Garonne, its historic tranquillity contrasts with the rampant urbanisation beyond. You enter Toulouse at the junction of the Canal de Garonne, the Canal de Brienne and the Canal du Midi, at the level of Les Pont-Jumeaux. Then a cycle track beside the Canal du Midi takes you into the city centre.